Multiple myeloma patients undergoing chemotherapy: Which symptom clusters impact quality of life?

AbstractAims and ObjectivesTo identify symptom clusters and examine their association with health‐related quality of life.BackgroundMultiple myeloma patients undergoing chemotherapy suffer from disease symptoms and adverse effects during the course of the disease. However, single symptom management has little effect, and symptom management for these patients remains challenging. Symptom clusters open a new perspective and provide important clues for symptom management.DesignA cross‐sectional study.MethodParticipants were invited to complete the Chinese version of the Memorial Symptom Assessment Scale and Quality of Life Questionnaire‐core 30. Appropriate indicators were used for descriptive statistics. Principal component analysis was used to identify symptom clusters. Associations between symptom clusters and quality of life were examined with Pearson correlation coefficients, Pearson correlation matrix and multiple linear regression. This study was reported following the STROBE checklist.ResultsA total of 177 participants were recruited from seven hospitals in this study. We identified self‐image disorder, psychological, gastrointestinal, neurological, somatic and pain symptom clusters in multiple myeloma patients with chemotherapy. Approximately 97.65% of patients suffer from multiple symptom clusters. The pain, psychological and gastrointestinal symptom clusters have negatively influence on health‐related quality of life. The strongest association was found with the pain symptom cluster.ConclusionMost of multiple myeloma patients suffer from multiple symptom clusters. When improving the multiple myeloma patients' health‐related quality of life, the clinical staff should prioritise relieving the pain symptom cluster.Relevance to Clinical PracticeWhen multiple myeloma patients undergoing chemotherapy suffer from multiple symptom clusters, nurses should prioritise relieving the pain symptom cluster to improve their health‐related quality of life. When drawing up and providing interventions, nurses should focus on the correlation among symptoms rather than single symptom. By relieving one symptom in a given cluster, other symptoms within the same symptom cluster may also be relieved.